A Land Raider Motorway: Chaos Land Raider Reviews.

The Land Raider. Now, Chaos Marines have not had much luck with Land Raiders in their time, since we parted with 4th edition we lost the equal footing with Space Marines (We had Machine Spirit back then) since then the Chaos Land Raider has been pushed back as the Redeemer and the Crusader appeared for the Marines, followed by some apocalypse variants for marines, then Imperial Armour for marines. The poor Chaos Land Raider slowly got cheaper through the Dex's but still is called out for not being worth the points. So now we have 3 more, so how do they stack up?

First up, and my Favorite of the 3 is the Spartan. Coming in at 55 points more than the bog standard Land Raider is a big points difference, a lot more than Redeemer or Crusader are, so what are we getting? First off the Spartan comes with +1 HP, which is a nice little something. Its 2 sets of twin linked Lascannons are replaced with Quad Lascannons, giving the Spartan 4 twin linked Lascannon shots a turn. Ermm, Wow...
The spartans kicker however is that it holds 25 model in its belly, which to be honest is the reason why you would get this bad boy, them units of 20 chaos marines that were pointless in 6th is a nice thing now, stuff em in there and charge! To top it all off it comes with Extra Armour, not a biggy, but its nice.

So for 285 points, its by all means not bad at all, it out performs the Chaos Raider in shots, resilience and assault power. but we have not finished with it yet as it can be upgraded with many things, so lets list them off.

It can get a Twin linked Heavy flamer to replace the Hull mounted Twin Linked heavy bolter, which I don't really rate. For one you will never use a heavy flamer at the front of your Land Raider, especially is you have 25 spaces in there with guys popping out. so no.
The Spartan can also swap out its Quad Lascannons for Laser Destroyers, which are Twin Linked lascannons at AP1 Ordnance with reduced range. So you drop half your shots for AP1 Ordnance basically, which to be honest is not a bad choice. However, I doubt I would go for this exchange as the Lascannons give twice as much damage potential and more range, which is what I would want from a fortress tank.
Next up, the Spartan can take a Frag Assault Launcher for 10 points. Well this is a must to be honest, them 25 spaces might not have frag grenades to charge things, so for 10 points more the spartan can do it for them. Take!
Next!
Armoured Ceramite for 20 points. Now to take the edge of pure 1 shot melta death is good and is most likely worth it on one of these. You have invested a lot of points on this so keeping that melta damage down is a good thing.
The next lot of upgrades are pintle-mounted weapons, the only gun worth mentioning here is the Multi-melta, there are others, but others arn't really that damaging. Also it puts an extra heavy shot within 24" of your Spartan. It is 20 points however, so on top of everything else it is pricey.
Next a Spartan can take possession... no, moving on.
Next is the Dirge Caster for 5 points, an instant take. There is no reason not to.
Warpflame Gargoyles, they are just not needed.
Last up is Malefic Ammunition for its Twin Linked heavy bolter, which is not really worth it.

So all together, what I would arm the Spartan up with is Frag Assault Launchers and Armoured Ceramite and Dirge Casters for 320 points.

Now question, what are you going to put in it? now for 320 points I believe this thing is far too expensive to stuff 10 Terminators with upgrades on them and some HQ's to back them up, I tried this and its about 1,000 points, so we cannot take two or else then we can't take any troops. So, what do we put in it?
Well my good friend Tom Leighton used to run some nurglings in his Raiders at the start of 7th edition, this was a really good tactic as they had a large amount of attacks, large amount of wounds and they balanced out how expensive the Land Raiders cost making the Raiders useful. Now we can do this with the Spartan with more Daemon units, the two I think are the best for this are either 20 Bloodletters or Plague Bearers along with their respective Heralds (and gifts). Between the two I would grab the Plague Bearers, having that poison to wound puts up the amount of damage the unit can do, also they are more resilient than there Khorne counterparts.

So there you have it:

Spartan Land Raider: Frag Assault Launcher, Armoured Ceramite, Dirge Caster - 320
20 Plague Bearers - 180
*Insert Plague Heralds Here* - Points

Chaos: What are you wanting to do with this army?

Recently I have been chatting on a Facebook group dedicated to Chaos Marines and anyone who loves them, this is where you will find me lurking vomiting on posts about how Warp Talons are a brilliant option. Don't worry that is not all I do, currently I am having a chat about how the hell I am meant to put my Fire Raptor together, but less of that and onto some thinking, I can smell the smoke already.

Imperial Armour 13: War Machines of Awesome

Over Christmas I have acquired my very own copy of Imperial Armour 13, and have been glued to it at every chance I get. So why not share the fun with some reviews of this book and what my first impressions are and then we can dive into taking it apart in chunks take a good bite! Let us begin!

Fortnight of Pain - 9 Days 2 Large Tournaments Part II

Right, so going into the second game of Death or Glory, and I'm playing another player that won their game, and another difficult match up. I'm playing against a guy called Jody Rosher, and he was running a cooky Imperial Guard 5th edition style list. And the list was as follows:

Fortnight of Pain - 9 Days 2 Large Tournaments Part I

Ok, few clarifications before I get started. Firstly, I was going to introduce this as my third post, this is because I started my second, about my preparations, then got bored, went to play some League, and forgot about it, thinking I'd finished and posted it. Good job! Secondly, when I say GT what I mean is a 2 day tournament, although one of them is the actual GT. So, here comes a mountain of shit, aimed directly at you, reviewing my experiences of the 2 events, and going through my games briefly. Or maybe not so briefly, arriving at part XI, on left.

Beginning Toy Solider Prep Work

So, me and my cohort of chaos bloggers are rolling out to this years 'Toy Solider' Tournament. Being the first major event I am going to in a long time makes this a big thing for me so I want to prep nice and early. Also I do need to do a lot of buying and painting of models when I get the chance. But hey, there is still a long time to go.

Time for a Sun Burst Bomb!

Greetings fellow chaos. I have been listening in to 40Kuk/Global Podcast, which I would recommend for all you aspiring champions out their wanting to know tournament meta's and pick up on ideas on how to defeat them. Link here to their website: http://www.40kglobal.com/

Now in one of the Podcasts that I listened to was talk about a Chaos Marine player in America who came 6th in the Las Vagas Open, where he used the Sun Burst Artifact out of the Black Legion supplement book (a really long named one) and it got my tactical mind buzzing. Now it worked well and true for this American chap sniping the enemies troop units at the back of the board edge via arriving outflank granted by the Slannesh Steed. I liked this tactic, but I always want more from it so I've decided to take it a little further.